Chapter 4 - The Question Dante Couldn’t Ignore
Dante did not believe in coincidences.
Clare did.
At least she had before meeting him.
Now she stood in the entrance hall of a centuries-old villa while an Italian woman she had never seen before claimed Clare’s name had been written in the dead wife’s notebook of a man she had met ten hours earlier on an airplane.
Coincidence suddenly felt insufficient.
“What notebook?” Clare asked.
Dante didn’t answer.
His focus remained on Sofia.
“Show me.”
Sofia glanced at Clare.
“Dante—”
“Now.”
The warmth disappeared from his voice.
Clare heard the man from the newspapers beneath the exhausted father she had met on the plane.
Sofia handed Leo to another woman who had entered the hallway.
Dante immediately stiffened.
“That’s Teresa,” Sofia said. “She helped care for you when you were younger. Leo is safe.”
Dante hesitated.
Then nodded.
Sofia led them into a study.
Maya held Clare’s hand.
Clare considered asking that her daughter be taken somewhere else, then rejected the idea instantly.
Until she understood what was happening, Maya stayed beside her.
The study smelled of old paper and cedar.
Books lined the walls.
Sofia unlocked a desk drawer and removed a small black notebook.
Dante stared at it.
“I thought her personal things were in New York.”
“Most were.”
“Why is this here?”
“Alessia gave it to me two weeks before she died.”
Dante’s face changed.
“What?”
“She said if anything happened to her, I should keep it until you came back to Rome.”
“I came back for the funeral.”
“You were not ready.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t decide when I’m ready to know something about my wife.”
Sofia absorbed the anger without flinching.
“No. But Alessia asked me to.”
That stopped him.
Sofia opened the notebook.
Several pages contained dates, initials, numbers, and short sentences.
She turned near the back.
There it was.
C. Jensen — St. Matthew’s — ask about delivery records.
Clare stared.
“That’s my hospital.”
Dante looked at her.
“You worked there?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Almost eight years.”
“Did you know Alessia?”
“No.”
“Did she ever contact you?”
“Not that I remember.”
Dante took the notebook.
Under Clare’s name was another line.
Leo records altered? Find nurse. Do not use hospital email.
Clare felt suddenly cold.
“What does that mean?”
Dante looked toward his son in the doorway.
Leo records.
“Was Leo born in Ohio?” Clare asked.
“No. Manhattan.”
“Then why would she contact my hospital?”
Dante turned pages.
Nothing else explained it.
Sofia spoke quietly.
“Alessia became afraid during the last month.”
Dante looked at her.
“She never told me.”
“She tried.”
“No.”
“She said you were obsessed with finding whoever threatened your business. She worried you would dismiss anything that didn’t fit that investigation.”
His face hardened.
“I would never dismiss danger to her.”
“She did not think you would dismiss danger.”
Sofia’s voice softened.
“She thought you would become it.”
The room went quiet.
Dante looked away.
Clare suddenly felt like an intruder inside a marriage that had ended before she arrived.
Maya tugged her hand.
“Mommy, I want breakfast.”
Clare immediately focused on her daughter.
“Of course.”
Sofia smiled.
“I’ll take you to the kitchen.”
Clare hesitated.
Maya looked at the older woman.
“Do you have pancakes?”
Sofia blinked.
“Pancakes?”
“My grandma says heaven has pancakes.”
Sofia smiled despite the tension.
“Then my kitchen should attempt to compete.”
Maya approved.
Clare looked toward Dante.
“One minute.”
She crouched.
“You stay where I can see you.”
The study opened directly toward the dining area.
Maya walked with Sofia to the kitchen doorway.
Clare turned back.
“This does not mean I knew your wife.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking someone wrote your name.”
“Maybe another Clare Jensen.”
“At your hospital?”
Clare folded her arms.
“It’s not an unusual name.”
Dante handed her the notebook.
“Read the next page.”
Clare did.
Most entries meant nothing.
Then she saw a date.
Six months and eleven days earlier.
Three days before Alessia died.
Spoke with C.J. She remembers the blood type discrepancy. She promised to check archived chart.
Clare’s stomach tightened.
“I never spoke to her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Think.”
“I’m thinking.”
She searched her memory.
Hundreds of patients.
Hundreds of families.
Calls from attorneys.
Insurance companies.
Researchers.
Then something surfaced.
A woman had called the nurses’ station months earlier.
Not asking about Alessia.
About a newborn transfer record.
Clare’s eyes widened.
Dante saw it.
“What?”
“I remember a call.”
“From her?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she ask?”
Clare closed her eyes.
“She said she was auditing a neonatal chart from a private clinic.”
“Which clinic?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
“Stop ordering me to think.”
Dante went silent.
Clare breathed.
“She asked how often blood type could be entered incorrectly during transfer.”
Dante stared at her.
“And what did you tell her?”
“That clerical errors happen, but two conflicting records should trigger verification.”
“Anything else?”
“She asked whether archived charts could be changed.”
“Can they?”
“Not without leaving an electronic trail.”
Dante’s expression darkened.
“Did she give a name?”
Clare struggled to remember.
“No.”
“Did you check the chart?”
“I said I would ask medical records.”
“Did you?”
Clare looked away.
The timing had been terrible.
Maya had been sick.
Richard had become furious because Clare worked two overtime shifts.
Her supervisor had assigned her to another unit.
“I forgot.”
Dante’s face tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“It wouldn’t have changed what happened.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
His eyes flashed.
For several seconds, the room held the kind of tension that made Clare understand why people feared him.
Then Leo made a soft noise from the hallway.
Dante’s entire expression changed.
Clare noticed.
That transformation—powerful man to frightened father—felt almost more dangerous than anger.
He walked to Leo.
Teresa handed him over.
Dante held the baby against his chest.
Clare watched him.
The notebook remained open on the desk.
“Why would someone alter Leo’s blood type?” she asked.
Dante looked down.
“I don’t know.”
“Were there any medical issues when he was born?”
“No.”
“Paternity questions?”
Dante’s eyes snapped up.
Clare held his gaze.
“I’m a nurse. I’m asking medically, not personally.”
“No.”
“Was he transferred anywhere?”
“Alessia had complications after delivery. Leo spent twelve hours in a private neonatal unit while she was treated.”
“Where?”
Dante named a Manhattan clinic.
Clare recognized it.
Her hospital had received transferred records from that clinic before.
“How does Ohio fit?”
Dante slowly sat.
“One of the Salvatore Foundation’s pediatric programs partnered with St. Matthew’s.”
Clare felt another chill.
“So records could have been exchanged.”
“Yes.”
“What was Alessia trying to prove?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante hated those words.
Clare could hear it.
His phone rang.
Marco.
Dante answered.
“What?”
Marco’s voice carried faintly.
Dante’s expression changed immediately.
“When?”
Clare watched him.
“Keep him there.”
A pause.
“No police yet.”
Another pause.
“I said keep him there.”
He ended the call.
Clare’s stomach tightened.
“Richard?”
Dante looked at her.
“No.”
That should have relieved her.
It didn’t.
“Then who?”
Dante placed Leo in the bassinet.
“One of the men who worked security the night Alessia died.”
Clare stared.
“What happened?”
“He disappeared six months ago.”
“And now?”
Marco appeared in the doorway.
“He just walked into our Rome office.”
Dante stood.
“Why?”
Marco looked toward Clare before answering.
“He says he heard she arrived.”
Clare’s face drained.
“Me?”
Marco nodded.
Dante’s voice became dangerous.
“How would he know Clare Jensen was here?”
Marco did not answer.
He didn’t need to.
Someone was watching them.
Someone knew the woman from Alessia’s notebook had crossed the Atlantic.
And that person had moved before Clare herself even understood why her name mattered.
Dante took the notebook.
“Clare.”
She looked at him.
“I know you want to leave.”
“Yes.”
“I’m asking you not to.”
Her first instinct was anger.
Then she looked toward Maya eating pancakes at the long kitchen table.
At Leo sleeping nearby.
At the dead woman’s handwriting.
“What are you asking me to do?”
Dante’s eyes met hers.
“Help me understand why my wife was looking for you before someone killed her.”
Clare wanted to say no.
She wanted to take Maya and disappear.
But if Alessia had contacted her about Leo’s medical records, this was no longer only Dante’s mystery.
Something had connected their lives before they ever met.
May you like
And somewhere in Rome, a man who had disappeared after Alessia’s death had just returned because Clare Jensen had arrived.
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